Did you know that Humphrey Bogart once got arrested for protecting his drinking buddies—who happened to be a pair of stuffed pandas? Or that Ava Gardner would water-ski to the set of Night of the Iguana holding a towline in one hand and a cocktail in the other? That none other than “The Duke” John Wayne may have very well invented the Margarita?

Barely legal Natalie Wood only let Dennis Hopper seduce her if he provided a bathtub full of champagne. Bing Crosby’s ill-mannered antics earned him the nickname “Binge Crosby.” And sweet Mary Pickford stashed liquor in hydrogen peroxide bottles during Prohibition.

Below are a few anecdotes, watering holes and boozy quotes from some of our favorite stars. They were beautiful, glamorous, clever too—and very often drunk.

I just finished writing a book filled with suicide, psychosis and the elusive meaning of life.  I turned it in and spent three solid weeks lying on my living floor, watching old metal videos and trying to untangle my brain.

My writer sort-of-mentor friend called while Judas Priest was ripping through “Diamonds & Rust”.

“Did you know that for at least one night in Memphis, K.K. Downing was the King of Rock and Roll?” I said when I picked up the phone.

“What?” she said.

“Never mind,” I told her, stabbing the TV mute.

When I decided to write a book, just after deactivating my Facebook account in a fit of pique, I also decided I would act like a professional writer, even though I wasn’t one yet. To me this entails reading everything I can get my hands on, writing every free minute of the day, and drinking heavily. I decided I wouldn’t curb my alcohol intake at all, at least until the book was finished.

It is easier to figure out cold fusion than it is to discuss rock and roll journalism without mentioning Mick Wall. He is to music writing what Keith Richards is to the guitar — he didn’t invent it, but he sure as hell made it his own.

Mick Wall began his career writing for a weekly music paper in the late Seventies and a few years later he jumped into a grass roots heavy metal magazine called Kerrang!. He quickly became its most popular writer and now thirty years later, Kerrang! is the biggest music periodical in circulation in the UK, with its own television and radio stations, branded tours, and massive annual awards ceremony.

Like Kerrang!, Mick Wall has also exploded as a force in the arena of rock journalism. He has penned nearly twenty music biographies, tackling a diverse range of subjects from immortal record producer John Peel to the howling tornado that is Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose. Rose was so unsettled by Wall’s book that he called him out by name in the song, “Get in the Ring,” from the Use Your Illusion II album.